So I've Heard
So I've Heard

Author: Alan Rich

Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 9781574671339

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With an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Washington Post music critic Tim Page Penned by veteran music writer, critic, and Grammy nominee Alan Rich, currently a music critic for the alternative paper LA Weekly, this book is a collection of music criticism gleaned from four decades of concert-going, opera-going, and record-listening on both coasts. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Washington Post music critic Tim Page provides the book's introduction. Included are reviews and essays on musicians, both well-known and obscure, who have shaped worldwide musical tastes during those years: conductors including Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, and Esa-Pekka Salonen; performers Glenn Gould and the overexploited David Helfgott; composers both familiar (Baroque masters, Mozart, Schubert) and contemporary (John Adams and John Cage). Probing essays include lively insights on music criticism itself and on where (if anywhere) music may (or may not) be heading in the new millennium. His writing drew from the formidable Virgil Thomson praise as "the most readable music reviewer ... our best muckraker."

The Dossiér
The Dossiér

Author: Milcah Mae Flowers

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2013-06-05

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1481741918

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The Dossier tells the story of immortals battling for control over their race and the world of humans. Immortals have existed among humans for a long time, humans remain mostly oblivious to the formers' ominous presence; those who know are victims with not enough time to share their discoveries. Mira T. Jones, however, accidentally uncovers the dark world, being drawn into a deceptive affair; as a New York City Federal agent investigating the truth behind the 9/11 bombing, she ventures into it with the purpose of finding the man who might give the answer she needs. But when she finds him, she also realizes that there will be no turning back.

Jumbo
Jumbo

Author: John Sutherland

Publisher: Aurum

Published: 2014-05-06

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 178131246X

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Born in 1861 in French Sudan, imported to Paris as a two year old calf, then later sold to the London Zoo at Regent's Park, Jumbo the elephant delighted countless children (including Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt) with rides and treats gently taken from outstretched hands. Each night, after the children and their families had gone home, he was mistreated in an attempt to keep him docile. By the time he reached sexual maturity, the abused and isolated animal had become dangerously unstable. He was sold to showman P.T. Barnum in 1881 (despite letters from 100,000 British schoolchildren who wrote to Queen Victoria begging her to prevent the sale) and brought to America. There, in the company of other elephants and amid greater physical freedom, Jumbo stabilized and went on to become one of the most lucrative circus acts of all time - as well as the most beloved. The world mourned when his life ended in 1885, with a storied (and most likely embellished) act of animal heroism. Jumbo reportedly rushed in front of an oncoming train in an effort to save a smaller elephant – his companion "Tom Thumb" – then perished while reaching his trunk out toward his longtime handler Matthew Scott – whose intense connection with the pachyderm spawned legends of its own. Integrating the history of elephants in captivity along with the details of Jumbo's celebrity life, dramatic death, and lasting cultural legacy, John Sutherland has written the first comprehensive "biography" of this incredible animal - one whose name has given us one of our most common and hyperbolic adjectives.

Document Z
Document Z

Author: Andrew Croome

Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com

Published: 2010-09

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 1459602986

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A masterful, taut and atmospheric novel of political espionage and intrigue, telling the story of the Petrov defection during the Cold War of the 1950s.

Transmission
Transmission

Author: Hari Kunzru

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2005-06-30

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 0141910267

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Hari Kunzru's Transmission is a witty novel about cyberspace, a Bollywood dancer and a world where everyone is connected. It's the twenty-first century, and everything and everyone is connected. Meet Arjun Mehta, an Indian cybergeek catapulted into California's spiralling hi-tech sector; Leela Zahir, beguiling Bollywood actress filming in the midge-infested Scottish wilds; and Guy Swift, hyped-up marketing exec lost in a blue-sky tomorrow of his own devising. Three dislocated individuals seeking nodes of connectivity - a place to fit in. Yet this is the twenty-first century, and their lives are about to become unexpectedly entangled as a virus spreads, and all their futures are rewired. But will it take them further from their dreams, or closer to their hearts? 'An aphoristic joke, a neat turn of phrase; a joke that makes you laugh . . . there's nothing Kunzru couldn't manage in prose. Thoroughly engrossing' Literary Review 'Funny, heartfelt and beautifully written, confirms Kunzru as one of the most talented writers of his generation' Image 'Very enjoyable, I couldn't put it down. Funny and wry; it is deftly plotted; its characters intimately drawn. Blissful' Observer 'Utterly affecting, a novel with devastating satirical bite' Financial Times Hari Kunzru is the author of the novels The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions and Gods Without Men, and the story collection Noise. He lives in New York.

The Seven Deadly Sins
The Seven Deadly Sins

Author: Nicola Barker

Publisher: Union Books

Published: 2012-11-01

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 1908526165

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We live with the idea of sin every day – from the greatest transgressions to the tiniest misdemeanours. But surely the concept was invented for an age where divine retribution and eternal punishment dominated the collective consciousness? In this lively collection of new writing, Nicola Barker, Dylan Evans, David Flusfeder, Todd McEwen, Martin Rowson, John Sutherland and Ali Smith go head to head with the capital vices to explore what we really mean when we talk about sin. The resulting mixture of erudite and playful essays and startling new fiction might not make you a better person, but it will certainly give you pause for thought when you’ re next laying the law down or – heaven forfend – about to do something beyond the pale yourself.

Ask the Pilot
Ask the Pilot

Author: Patrick Smith

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2004-06-01

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 1101217251

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Though we routinely take to the air, for many of us flying remains a mystery. Few of us understand the how and why of jetting from New York to London in six hours. How does a plane stay in the air? Can turbulence bring it down? What is windshear? How good are the security checks? Patrick Smith, an airline pilot and author of Salon.com's popular column, "Ask the Pilot," unravels the secrets and tells you all there is to know about the strange and fascinating world of commercial flight. He offers: A nuts and bolts explanation of how planes fly Insights into safety and security Straight talk about turbulence, air traffic control, windshear, and crashes The history, color, and controversy of the world's airlines The awe and oddity of being a pilot The poetry and drama of airplanes, airports, and traveling abroad In a series of frank, often funny explanations and essays, Smith speaks eloquently to our fears and curiosities, incorporating anecdotes, memoir, and a life's passion for flight. He tackles our toughest concerns, debunks conspiracy theories and myths, and in a rarely heard voice dares to return a dash of romance and glamour to air travel.

The American Experiment
The American Experiment

Author: James MacGregor Burns

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2013-05-21

Total Pages: 2467

ISBN-13: 148043020X

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The Pulitzer Prize–winning author’s stunning trilogy of American history, spanning the birth of the Constitution to the final days of the Cold War. In these three volumes, Pulitzer Prize–­ and National Book Award–winner James MacGregor Burns chronicles with depth and narrative panache the most significant cultural, economic, and political events of American history. In The Vineyard of Liberty, he combines the color and texture of early American life with meticulous scholarship. Focusing on the tensions leading up to the Civil War, Burns brilliantly shows how Americans became divided over the meaning of Liberty. In The Workshop of Democracy, Burns explores more than a half-century of dramatic growth and transformation of the American landscape, through the addition of dozens of new states, the shattering tragedy of the First World War, the explosion of industry, and, in the end, the emergence of the United States as a new global power. And in The Crosswinds of Freedom, Burns offers an articulate and incisive examination of the US during its rise to become the world’s sole superpower—through the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Cold War, and the rapid pace of technological change that gave rise to the “American Century.”

Turner
Turner

Author: James Hamilton

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2009-03-12

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 0307548457

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J.M.W. Turner was a painter whose treatment of light put him squarely in the pantheon of the world’s preeminent artists, but his character was a tangle of fascinating contradictions. While he could be coarse and rude, manipulative, ill-mannered, and inarticulate, he was also generous, questioning, and humane, and he displayed through his work a hitherto unrecognized optimism about the course of human progress. With two illegitimate daughters and several mistresses whom Turner made a career of not including in his public life, the painter was also known for his entrepreneurial cunning, demanding and receiving the highest prices for his work. Over the course of sixty years, Turner traveled thousands of miles to seek out the landscapes of England and Europe. He was drawn overwhelmingly to coasts, to the electrifying rub of the land with the sea, and he regularly observed their union from the cliff, the beach, the pier, or from a small boat. Fueled by his prodigious talent, Turner revealed to himself and others the personality of the British and European landscapes and the moods of the surrounding seas. He kept no diary, but his many sketchbooks are intensely autobiographical, giving clues to his techniques, his itineraries, his income and expenditures, and his struggle to master the theories of perspective. In Turner, James Hamilton takes advantage of new material discovered since the 1975 bicentennial celebration of the artist’s birth, paying particular attention to the diary of sketches with which Turner narrated his life. Hamilton’s textured portrait is fully complemented by a sixteen-page illustrations insert, including many color reproductions of Turner’s most famous landscape paintings. Seamlessly blending vibrant biography with astute art criticism, Hamilton writes with energy, style, and erudition to address the contradictions of this great artist.

The Gathering Storm
The Gathering Storm

Author: Robert Jordan

Publisher: Tor Books

Published: 2009-10-27

Total Pages: 786

ISBN-13: 1429960833

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The Wheel of Time is now an original series on Prime Video, starring Rosamund Pike as Moiraine! With Robert Jordan’s untimely passing in 2007, Brandon Sanderson, the New York Times bestselling author of the Mistborn novels and the Stormlight Archive, was chosen by Jordan’s editor—his wife, Harriet McDougal—to complete the final volume in The Wheel of Time®, later expanded to three books. The Gathering Storm, the twelfth novel in Jordan’s #1 New York Times bestselling epic fantasy series, begins the story’s dramatic conclusion as Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, struggles to unite a fractured network of kingdoms and alliances in preparation for the Last Battle. War is coming. The Dark One’s forces are brutal and unrelenting. Rand must forge a united front, but the Seanchan remain an immediate threat, as do the Forsaken. With so many shadows swirling around him, Rand is consumed by his responsibilities, turning heartless in the eyes of his allies, and even more merciless to his enemies. Meanwhile the Seanchan march on the White Tower, where Egwene al'Vere works to rally the disparate factions of the Aes Sedai together, even as their tyrannical leader schemes against her. Providing leadership in the face of increasing uncertainty and despair, Egwene’s fight will prove the mettle of the Aes Sedai, and her conflict will decide the future of the White Tower—and possibly the world itself. Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel of Time® by Robert Jordan has captivated millions of readers around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters. The last six books in series were all instant #1 New York Times bestsellers, and The Eye of the World was named one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read. The Wheel of Time® New Spring: The Novel #1 The Eye of the World #2 The Great Hunt #3 The Dragon Reborn #4 The Shadow Rising #5 The Fires of Heaven #6 Lord of Chaos #7 A Crown of Swords #8 The Path of Daggers #9 Winter's Heart #10 Crossroads of Twilight #11 Knife of Dreams By Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson #12 The Gathering Storm #13 Towers of Midnight #14 A Memory of Light By Robert Jordan and Teresa Patterson The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time By Robert Jordan, Harriet McDougal, Alan Romanczuk, and Maria Simons The Wheel of Time Companion By Robert Jordan and Amy Romanczuk Patterns of the Wheel: Coloring Art Based on Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.